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NEW YORK (AP) — With Halloween on the horizon, Chicago Costume is stuffed. Packaged costumes, including superheros and Japanese animation characters in both kid and adult sizes, dangle near colorful wigs and bottles of fake blood. Downstairs, vintage clothes from the 1970s beg for one more boogie night. The frightening possibilities mask the work that’s gone on behind the scenes to stock the family-owned shop and its sister store for the spooky season. Owner Courtland Hickey said he ordered 40% fewer costumes this year because of President Donald Trump’s tariffs on products from China.To fill the gap, Hickey and his…
Developing comprehensive screening for early-stage cancer is the key to saving the most lives. Although multi-cancer early detection (MCED) tests are still being researched and lack FDA approval, several are commercially available for consumers who are willing to pay out of pocket. Individuals can ask their doctor to order the Galleri blood test from Grail, or they can opt for a whole-body MRI from companies like Prenuvo or Ezra, which often costs $2,000 or more. Soon, consumers will have another — and rather unique—way to screen for multiple types of cancer. SpotitEarly, a biotech company that’s part of Startup Battlefield…
As AI companies mature, the fight for high-quality data has become one of the most competitive areas in the industry, launching companies like Mercor, Surge, and, most prominently, Alexandr Wang’s Scale AI. But now that Wang has moved on to run AI at Meta, many funders see an opening — and are willing to fund companies with compelling new strategies for collecting training data. The Y Combinator graduate Datacurve is one such company, focusing on high-quality data for software development. On Thursday, the company announced a $15 million Series A round, led by Mark Goldberg at Chemistry with participation from…
Design platform Figma is partnering with Google to add more AI features, the company announced on Thursday. While Figma had previously introduced AI app-building tools of its own, the new integration with Google will bring several Gemini models to the design software to address what Figma says are the “evolving needs” of product designers and their teams. With the partnership, Gemini 2.5 Flash, Gemini 2.0, and Imagen 4 will be added to Figma’s toolset, while the company maintains its relationship with Google Cloud. Gemini 2.5 Flash will be integrated into the process for editing images and Figma’s image generation capabilities,…
Starting this week, Netflix subscribers can play games on their smart TV — a feature that has been in the works for some time. Reports about Netflix’s efforts to bring its mobile games to televisions began in early 2023. Later that year, the company launched a game controller app for iOS devices. However, there hadn’t been much word about gaming on the big screen until now, but it looks like the wait is finally over. To use the new feature, go to the Games tab on the Netflix TV app, then pick a game and use your phone as the…
YouTube announced on Thursday that creators whose channels were previously terminated will be able to request new accounts. “We know many terminated creators deserve a second chance – YouTube has evolved and changed over the past 20 years, and we’ve had our share of second chances to get things right with our community too,” YouTube wrote in the blog post. This change in policy, which YouTube is calling a “pilot,” didn’t come out of nowhere. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) had subpoenaed YouTube’s parent company, Alphabet, to investigate if the Biden-Harris administration had “coerced or colluded” platforms into censoring speech. Last…
Cruise Planners debuted travel technology enhancements during its annual convention onboard the Wonder of the Seas to enable its franchise network to “streamline workflows, boost efficiency, and provide smarter ways for advisors to serve clients,” the company said.Some of the enhancements include future AI projects, such as a reservation intelligence engine, AI search filters, and an AI confirmation import tool. Trip Summary 3.0 has been revamped with features that include “drag-and-drop functionality, an expanded range of travel component options such as cruise tours, flights, and rail, and the ability to bundle multiple itineraries into proposals for side-by-side comparison,” Cruise Planners…
Security researchers at Google say hackers targeting corporate executives with extortion emails have stolen data from “dozens of organizations,” one of the first signs that the hacking campaign may be far-reaching. The tech giant said Thursday in a statement shared with TechCrunch that the Clop extortion gang exploited multiple security vulnerabilities in Oracle’s E-Business Suite software to steal significant amounts of data from affected organizations. Oracle’s E-Business software allows companies to run their operations, such as storing their customer data and their employees’ human resources files. Google said in a corresponding blog post that the hacking campaign targeting Oracle customers…
A prominent Italian businessman was targeted with Paragon spyware, according to local news reports. On Thursday, Italian online investigative website IrpiMedia and newspaper La Stampa reported that Francesco Gaetano Caltagirone was among around 90 people who received a notification from WhatsApp in January, alerting him that he had been targeted with spyware made by Paragon Solutions. It’s not immediately clear for what reason Caltagirone was targeted, and a spokesperson for his holding company, Caltagirone SpA, did not respond to a request for comment. Caltagirone’s namesake holding company owns several firms across different industries, including construction, real estate, finance, and publishing,…
by Lacey Pfalz Last updated: 11:35 AM ET, Thu October 9, 2025 Intrepid Travel, certified B-Corp and responsible travel operator, is making big changes to its decarbonization project next year, transitioning from a carbon offsetting program to a new Climate Impact Fund that will transform the operator’s everyday emissions production. The new change will fund $2 million in projects to switch to electric vehicles, invest in renewable energy in hotels and offices and work with over 10,000 suppliers around the world to decarbonize. The change will be immediate, with the operator providing loans for operators to fund EVs and solar panels…